Moon Handbooks Pittsburgh in the Post-Gazette

It occured to me recently that while I had posted the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about Moon Pittsburgh on my MySpaceblog, I’d never actually gotten around to posting it here. So … here it is.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

By Caitlin Price, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A quirky guide to Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — Dining on a dime, bar hopping like a Pittsburgh native and a brief rundown of the city’s sport celebrities all can be found in the new guide “Moon Pittsburgh”. Written by Pittsburgher Dan Eldridge, “Moon Pittsburgh” is intended to be “kind of a quirky guide” to the city, he said.

“Pittsburgh is a really great place for what it is,” Mr. Eldridge said. “[It] offers a lot, but definitely in a different way than other cities do.”

Fashioned after the popular “Lonely Planet” series, “Moon Pittsburgh” ($17.95, Avalon Travel) is the latest in the Moon Handbooks travel guide series, which launched at the end of May.

This one combines the typical “whats” and “wheres” of the city with a taste of Pittsburgh’s history and culture. It includes fun sidebars such as “Pittsburgh’s Holiest Houses of Sin”, which highlights several places of worship that have been transformed into clubs, restaurants and bars. It also is very up-to-date: A sidebar about the smoking ban dispute warns visitors about the controversy.

The main features of the book are color-coded maps found in the back. Each of the seven maps designates a specific part of town, from Shadyside, Point Breeze and Squirrel Hill to the North Side. It mainly focuses on Downtown and the East End. Every restaurant, venue and exhibit is referenced to its respective map, making it quick and easy to find destinations throughout the city. Also included is a handy map of city bus routes.

Mr. Eldridge created the guide with the mindset that Pittsburgh is somewhere to “reinvent yourself or start a new career,” adding that he finds the city ideal because it’s a “small town with a big-city feel.” He said he wrote it for new and temporary residents, but he also searched for unusual spots even natives would find interesting. It’s written in a casual manner and with a “young person’s attitude about it.”

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ABOUT THE LABOR PARTYWritten by Young Pioneers Media founder Dan Eldridge, The Labor Party is a blog about today's creative and cultural entrepreneurs.

ABOUT THE AUTHORMost recently the managing editor of North American Publishing Company's consumer technology division, Dan is currently based in Philadelphia, where he works as an independent journalist and guidebook author.

Along with co-authoring Lonely Planet guidebooks to Turkey, Thailand, the Philippines, and New England, Dan is the author of Moon Pittsburgh (Avalon Travel), the first edition of which was nominated for a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award. Moon Pittsburgh's upcoming third edition will be available in mid-2014.

Dan was also the founding editor of Young Pioneers, a magazine about independent travel culture that was nominated for the Utne Reader's annual Independent Press Awards in 2004. Dan is currently in the process of relaunching Young Pioneers; stay tuned to The Labor Party for updates, or follow @YoungPioneers on Twitter.